Different Food?

Chameleonfan1

New Member
I have been feeding my 8 month old male veiled chameleon 7-10 crickets a day and he seems to be doing fine. I dust them once a week and I used to feed him mealworms but I read they are very low on nutrients so I stopped feeding him mealworms. Ive been reading on another site just recently that I am supposed to feed him a variety so the options off the site listed many but the main 2 that look good are Silkworms and Hornworms. Is that a good idea? And if I should feed him these or whatever else should be fed where should I buy them for the cheap, because he seems to be doing fine and I don't want to spend another $50 on food when I don't think its needed. I'm thinking Mulberry Farms or whatever does anybody else know if I should trust it or its quality?

All help is greatly appreciated!:D
 
i get all my silkies hornworms waxworms and repiworms from mulberry the shippings not too bad and ive never had any doa and i live in upstate ny its 5 degrees out right now:eek:
 
Vitamin Supplements

Now when you say 3 like what ones do you reccomend I know I have RepCal with D3 which I give to him once a week what else should I have?
 
You need a phosphorous free calcium supplement
You would use that brand of calcium with D3 only twice a month instead of the plain calcium
You will also probably want a vitamin supplement, also used only once or twice a month if you are gutloading properly and using a variety of feeders.

Info about supplements:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/65-supplements.html
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/174-whats-supplements-brand.html
List of commonly used feeders with information about each:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/74-feeders.html
Info on gutloading:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/75-feeder-nutrition-gutloading.html
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/394-dry-gutload-recipe-january-2010.html
 
I'd get my horns from mulberry farms. They have a new option where you can get one cup of horns and one cup of silks on the same order and its pretty reasonable. Since you have one cham I wouldnt get too many horns. They grow quickly.
 
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I don't want to spend another $50 on food when I don't think its needed. ?

Ahhhhh. One of the many benefits of WC bugs! Along with nutrition you might not be adding with commercially available insects and gut loads. I see you are in Missouri so its not possible at the moment but once the weather warms up you can collect bugs from outside. The two biggest concerns are knowing what you collect and feed off and also knowing that the bugs come from a pesticide free area. There is some risk of parasites when feeding WC bugs but there is also the same risk when feeding commercially available feeders also. If you are worried about this then you can get your animals poop tested somewhat frequently and treat accordingly if you want. If the animal is healthy and in good conditions a small parasite load should not be a problem. They live with them in the wild and do just fine.

Here is what I feed off in the summer time. Spider species are wolf, various crab, various orb weavers and jumping spiders. Grasshoppers, katydids, cicadas (if your species is large enough), and locusts, but not lubbers which are toxic and look like grasshoppers. Lots of different types of moths and butterflies. Be sure to know the butterflies you collect arent toxic. I mainly feed skippers and cabbage butterflies.

It is important to know that whatever bugs you collect are non toxic and do not eat toxic plants. After finding out the species a quick wiki check should give you the info you need.

It is hard for me to offer a huge variety in the cooler months because my animals do not see worms as a food source. I mainly feed crickets, flies which I get from mantisplace.com, and spiders I collect inside the house. Blue bottle flies are easy to keep, fairly cheap and most chameleons go insane over them! Be sure to buy the premade gut load and feed them also with fresh fruit juices. Veiled chameleons seem to accept all the worm species so I would not be worried about buying some and it not eating them.
 
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